I stepped even further out of my comfort zone with this one. This is the first time I have made an actual dress, without taking the top from an existing shirt.

(unless you count my Laurel project when I was 16. But lets be honest, my mom did all the work.)

I used every single last scrap I had left of this awesome purpley-pink striped knit that I made my cardigan out of. I would call this more of a test run than anything. I didn't know if it would turn out how I pictured it in my head.

I just laid down an existing sleeveless dress I had, pinned it to my fabric, and created my pattern from that. I outlined each piece of the dress with a 1/2" s.a. The original dress was a little more fitted around the bootay, and had a boat neck. I changed mine to a scoop, and made it fitted at the top, but then had it flare out a little more at the bottom. Knits aren't greatest at hiding things, so I didn't want to feel like the dress was suctioned to my body.

I knew I wanted rouched sleeves, so I took a shirt I had with ruched sleeves, stretched out the sleeve, and traced it as best I could onto pattern paper. To get the ruching effect, I just stretched out some thin elastic along the middle of the sleeve, and sewed it to the seam allowance.